Lost in Adaptation: Who Framed Roger Rabbit
The Dom compares the 1988 film Who Framed Roger Rabbit with the 1981 mystery novel Who Censored Roger Rabbit? by Gary K. Wolf, which served as the loose inspiration. Intro (Behind The Dom, the following message is displayed: "The Dom blurts out a major plot twist from the book in 30", which starts counting down as he speaks) The Dom: Hello, Beautiful Watchers; and welcome back to– You know what? We don't even have to do an episode on this one. I mean, how different can they possibly be, right? We can talk about other stuff. The trailer for Suicide Squad looks pretty good, am I right? Certainly better than Batman vs. Superman. No? (becomes nervous) Uh, well, perhaps you'd like to hear an epic poem I can post last night. It's about two assembly line robots that fall in love. (pause; becomes nervous again) Not your thing? I mean, certainly, plenty, plenty of other stuff to talk about, and there's certainly no reason to talk about a certain book. There are definitely, definitely not any heartbreaking plot twists in it that we should discuss. There's actually no need to force The Dom to talk about this sort of thing... (by now the counter reaches zero, and sure enough, The Dom blurts out a plot twist) ROGER DIES! AT THE BEGINNING! (footage of ''Who Framed Roger Rabbit plays, as Jessica Rabbit sings "Why Don't You Do Right") Poll '''People Asked:' 30 Saw the Film: 30 Read the Book: 1 Surprised to hear there WAS a book: 11 The Dom: Okay, okay, you may have noticed a wee theme emerging when I review movies intended for younger audiences. More often than not, it turns out the book it was based on had some surprisingly dark moments that were quietly ignored by the filmmakers. Well, this book puts them all to shame. (footage of past reviews of movie adaptations of children's literature is shown: "The Neverending Story", "Ender's Game", "The Wizard of Oz", "The Princess Bride") The Dom: Bastion stabbing a Trey while Fantasica sic descends into bloody civil war? (scoffs) Ender being pushed way, *way* past the point of no return physically, emotionally and mentally? Child's play! The Tin Man having been a normal human who's supposed to hack himself to pieces bit by bit? A trifle! "The Princess Bride" being left open-ended as they were all captured and tortured to death? Ah, nothing. (shots of the cover of the book "Who Censored Roger Rabbit?" are displayed) The Dom: (holds up index finger) This book... *This* book... Damn! The Dom (V.O.): As you can tell from the censors, most people have favored the film over the years... (a shot of the original author is seen, holding up a Roger Rabbit doll) ...including the author, Gary K. Wolf. (more footage follows) Apparently, completely unperturbed by the massive, *massive* liberties the filmmakers took with his work, Wolf actually liked the film so much, he went back and rewrote the novel to tie in. (a shot of the original book, "Who Censored Roger Rabbit?", is displayed) Well, sort of rewrote. He never said he was retconning the first novel... (a shot of a second Roger Rabbit novel is displayed, this one more in line with the movie than the original book, "Who P-P-Plugged Roger Rabbit?") ...just that this was another story, set in the same time, the same place with the same people, but wasn't a sequel or a prequel. (cut back to the original "Who Censored...", which slowly slides out of frame) So it seems that most people would like to quietly shovel this particular novel out of the way and just concentrate on the more popular and upbeat variations, but... (abruptly, the novel shifts back into place) this *is* still the book that started it all. It's what came up with the clever concept and inspired the classic film so many of us remember so fondly, so I'm going to talk about it, dagnabbit! The Dom: As you may have picked on by now, the book and the film have very little in common. The film kept the whole "cartoons are real and coexist with humans" concept and the very, *very* basic characters of Roger, Eddie and Jessica, but that's pretty much it. Now, in order to avoid rehashing the same jokes I did in I, Robot, (the words "In Name Only" appears on the screen) I've decided to introduce what I'm going to call the "in name only" clause. If this pops up, you'll know that the book and the film have, at best, the barest minimum in common, and because of this, I'm going to be dispensing with my show's usual format and instead simply give you a quick summary of the movie, and then do my best to describe the book. Quick disclaimer: As this *is* a completely different story... (cut to footage of the film version of Stephen King's "Maximum Overdrive", showing the vending machine shoot out cans of soda at a baseball player, killing him) ...and I'm going to be blasting out plot twists like a Stephen King drinks machine... (back to footage of the ''Roger Rabbit film'') ...this really, *really* will ruin the book for you if you hadn't yet. Thou hath been warned! The Film The Dom (V.O.): Grumpy and booze-ridden private detective Eddie Valiant is commissioned by a Cartoon Network CEO to tell Jessica Rabbit, the wife of one of his employees, Roger Rabbit, and bring back evidence of her infidelity in the hopes that getting her out of his life will help him focus on the job. Valiant succeeds in getting some nice pics of her having metaphorical sex with the eccentric owner of Toontown, and Roger takes it rather badly. The very next day, the cuckolding bastard is found dead, and Roger is pegged as the killer. The nefarious Judge Doom turns up with his henchmen, and they seem determined to find Roger and bring him to a terminal justice. Valiant shrugs it off and goes home, only to find Roger waiting for him there. He pleads for Valiant to help him clearing his name. Valiant isn't too keen, as he still mourns the loss of his brother at the hands of a Toon, but eventually agrees to help Roger out. It also transpires that the last will and testament of the deceased that would have left Toontown in the hands of the Toons themselves has also gone missing. Wait, now that I think about it, why did a human own all their homes in the first place? Was this another "buy it for a couple of beans" situation? Shame on you! Anyways, to cut a long story short, Roger and Valiant get chased around by Doom and his cronies, team up with Jessica and a cartoon taxi, and eventually stumble onto this big conspiracy to bulldoze Toontown and build the world's first freeway rest stop. After a wacky scuffle that leads to an unfortunate incident that involves a steamroller, it turns out Judge Doom is not only a Toon, but also the son of a bitch that killed Valiant's brother. After more fighting, he's successfully defeated, and it turns out they had the missing will on them all along because it was written in *temporarily*-disappearing ink for... reasons. It's a very... *happy* ending. The Dom: Right, then, uh... (rubs his neck uncomfortably) On to the book. The Book (throughout this part of the video, as with the review of the film version, footage of the movie is shown) The Dom (V.O.): I'll start with a quick biography of all the major characters. Heads up: you might as well forget almost everything you know about them from the film. (cut to a shot of a typical detective in a typical film noir) Valiant's a private investigator. That's... pretty much all the character development he gets. He's every P.I. you've ever seen in a film noir: trench coat, trilby, notebook, bottle of cheap bourbon in the drawer of his desk. Valiant. (more footage of the film) His only other noteworthy aspect is that he's open-minded to treat Toons as people, but not enough to actually like anybody. Hmm, Roger's gonna be hard to talk about. For now, I'll just say that, with a few major exceptions, he's probably the closest to his film counterpart. (cut to footage of ''Legend, showing gangsters Ronald and Reginald Kray, who are used to represent two characters in the book, the DeGreasy Brothers, a pair of shady comic strip proprietors who own Roger; the video now alternates between Roger Rabbit and Legend to illustrate'') The thuggish joint owners of a cartoon syndicate have employed Roger a 25-year contract. Rocco DeGreasy, the elder brother and smarter of the two, made most of the big decisions, while Dominick DeGreasy was the muscle. Rocco was Jessica's sugar daddy for a long time before she left him for Roger. They run a legitimate if somewhat heavy-handed business and are generally disliked by anyone who doesn't need something from them. Jessica is a very attractive Toon who works as an actress and a model. She's... How do I say this delicately? ...a gold-digging whore. That changed temporarily in the year she was married to Roger. Out of nowhere, she leaves Rocco for him, they get engaged on the first date, and she becomes a much nicer person all 'round. Almost exactly one year later, though, she up and leaves Roger without a word and overnight reverts back to being a pushy, judgmental prima donna and jumps back in bed with the ugly rich guy. Okay, now onto the world that they live in. Much like the film, it's an alternative universe where cartoons are real and simply act in the TV shows they're famous for. However, unlike the film, there isn't a Toontown supernatural enclave where most of them live. They just live in a normal world with us. Well, sort of with us. (several shots of segregation photos are shown, all carefully edited to make it look like the Toons are the targets, including high school students objecting to Toons in a high school, a sign by a public swimming pool banning Toons from usage, labeled drinking fountains showing whether Toons or humans could drink from them, and a restaurant that does not cater to Toons) The word of the day is "segregation". The book is up to its eyeballs to mid-20th Century racism. Valiant never went more than five minutes without passing multiple clearly-labeled water fountains, human-only bars, and shops sporting signs declaring who they will or will not serve. (back to the movie) Another interesting thing of note is that in this novel, Toons don't talk. When their lips move, a speech bubble appears above their heads. (in the movie, as Roger speaks, a speech bubble is edited in above him; the rabbit asks, "How can The Dom hate the Harry Potter movies?!" Cut to another scene, where Roger speaks, with another speech bubble edited in, with him saying, "He didn't even give them a fair chance! He stopped going after number 3!") And it's a physical manifestation, too. At one point, Roger turns sharply and Valiant can't tell what he's saying. (the speech bubble in the scene turns so that it's hard to see; cut to a street, with The Dom crossing it; he suddenly stops in the middle and looks down at the ground in disgust, as if he just stepped in something) The bubbles don't fade away, either. A major complaint of humans forced to share their neighborhood with Toons is stepping in the remains of someone's earlier conversation. (The Dom lifts up his foot, revealing he stepped in a speech bubble reading "Did you see Game of Thrones yesterday?"; cut back to the movie) While there are some movie deals going around, the majority of Toon business is actually (brief shot of a Roger Rabbit comic strip) comic strips. Roger and Baby Herman would pose for photographs and then they'd turn those pictures into the comics. (cut to a shot of Jessica, with a second Jessica appearing next to her) However, the most important thing to remember is this: all Toons have the ability to create temporary copies of themselves out of thin air. They're called "doppels", (a message appears beside Jessica reading: "Short for Doppelganger") and they're completely autonomous and can last anything from a few minutes and a couple of days, depending on how much concentration the Toon puts into it. (cut back to film footage) Okay, here's the plot. The book starts with Roger hiring Valiant to find out why the DeGreasy brothers seem so intent on keeping him in a permanent sidekick role rather than selling his contract to a new mystery buyer who apparently wants to star him in his own strip. Valiant pokes around, but all evidence seems to suggest there is no mystery buyer, and the reason Roger is always playing second fiddle is because he lacks the talent needed to make it on his own. Relations between Roger and his employers turned out to be particularly strained at the moment because his wife Jessica recently left him to return to her former lover, Rocco. Valiant goes to question Jessica and finds her to be a charming and attractive, cold-hearted bitch. Valiant also quickly twigs that Roger is following him around and trying to be an amateur detective. Quickly tiring of putting up with Toon shenanigans, Valiant decides to just tell Roger that there is no case, collect his fee, and be on his way. Upon arriving at his house, however... (cut to a Photoshopped image of Roger lying dead, draped over a stair railing (presumably in The Dom's house) with a bloody bullet hole in his chest, with a speech bubble lying on the floor next to him, reading his last words: "No fair! You got me everything? Jessica. My contract...") ...he discovers Roger draped over the banister with a bullet hole right through his chest. (cut back to film footage) Consumed by guilt for not taking Roger more seriously, Valiant decides to try and solve the murder, despite being warned not to get involved by the police department. (cut to a shot of another Photoshopped image, this one of Ron Kray from ''Legend, also with a bullet hole through him, in this case through his head, with blood flows from him'') The plot thickens soon after when it turns out that Rocco was murdered just before Roger, using a gun that was discovered in Roger's house. The police quickly jump to the conclusion... (more film footage, with a brief clip of ''Legend thrown to illustrate Rocco'') ...that the frustrated rabbit must have murdered Rocco for screwing over his career and taking his girl shortly before being offed himself. Valiant returns to his office to find a doppelganger of Roger waiting for him. Apparently, he had been created just before the murder to go and run an errand, and he asks Valiant to let him help him solve the mystery of his own murder and clear his name of Rocco's. Knowing that this version of Roger only has a day or so to live, maximum, Valiant reluctantly agrees. The book takes on a slightly buddy-cop aspect from here on, except that Valiant mostly sends Roger off to do mindless busy work to keep him out of the way. Valiant questions Dominick and Jessica. Once again, the general consensus doesn't seem to reflect well on Roger, as no one really doubts that he plugged Rocco. The condemning evidence keeps mounting up and up as at least three people saw Roger arriving at Rocco's house and running off afterwards with a smoking gun. Oddly, during the investigation, everyone keeps asking Valiant to keep an eye out for (image of...) an iron kettle Roger stole as a keepsake from a movie he cameoed in. Everyone gives a different explanation as to why the kettle belongs to them and why *they* should have it back. Roger has no idea why this is, as, as far as he is aware, there is nothing unusual or significant about this piece of kitchenware. Jessica then becomes the prime suspect for Roger's murder, seeing as he had just shot her lover and it was confirmed she was the only other person who could have gotten into his house. (cut to shots of three people: a nerd with buck teeth, glasses and a bowtie, a hot-looking female photographer with a camera, and a balding man who grins creepily while giving an OK sign) A subplot emerges involving Rocco's son Rock and the woman Masters who shoots the photos used in the comics, also a guy Sleaze who hires Toons for pornography. (back to the movie) Oh, yes, you guessed it – it turned out Jessica had, in her wild youth, taken part in some hardcore comic strips of his! (The Dom is seen at his computer: he types something, then presses "enter". He then grins suggestively and then puts a box of tissues on the desk, followed by putting soap on his hands, smiling creepily as he does so) If you've ever, and I can neither confirm nor deny this has happened to me personally, been looking on the Internet for some completely aboveboard and innocent information and *accidentally* ended up on a website containing some fan art of Jessica Rabbit outside of her usual red dress... (back to the movie) ...take a second to consider this: what you saw there was more accurate to the book than the film! Isn't that just a head trip! Jessica tries to hire Valiant to help her clear her name, and despite how much her new and sudden dislike for him upsets him, Roger wants Valiant to do it. Valiant refuses point-blank, as he's not entirely convinced that she *is* innocent and is pretty sure Roger's just in a terrible state of denial. Slowly but surely, Valiant and Roger follow up on the clues and unravel the chain of events from that night, ignoring the police's decreasingly subtle hints to back off. Everyone's constant obsession with the teakettle increases. Jessica straight-up offers sexual favors to Valiant in exchange for it. This eventually leads Valiant into realizing that the kettle is in fact a magic lamp. Um... I know how that sounds, but in context, it didn't actually come off as that silly. He does eventually find the kettle just as the police show up and arrest Roger's doppel, having finally caught on to what was happening. Jessica JUST WON'T *SHUT UP* about giving it to her, so Valiant punches her lights out and leaves her behind. (the screen goes black briefly as a punching sound is heard, followed by the sound of a body falling to the ground) Having a strong suspicion that he knows what the crack is now, he gives the kettle to Dominick DeGreasy... (cut to a clip of ''Aladdin, showing Jafar as he turns into a genie'') ...who summons the genie... who promptly shoots Dominick dead. (again, the screen goes black briefly as a gunshot sound is heard; then cut to another clip of ''Aladdin, showing the Genie (the actual blue one)) The genie then explains his full story to Valiant: Sick and tired of millennia of granting people their wishes, the genie had realized there wasn't any actual rule against him just killing anyone who summoned him. (''the footage then alternates between ''Roger Rabbit and Aladdin, with a shot of the kettle in a generic kitchen (presumably The Dom's)) Roger had gotten away with it for a while because he'd been making his wishes by accident, saying the magic words as part of a song he was singing and subconsciously thinking about what he wanted most in the world while the kettle was in the other room. Lacking a clear shot, the genie settled for throwing a cursed, monkey-poor twist to all of his wishes. Roger wants to be a comic book star; the genie made it happen, but stuck him as a permanent sidekick forever. Roger wanted to marry Jessica; the genie made her fall in love with him, but put a one-year time limit on it. '''The Dom:' (looks up in thought) Wait, what's that word? You know, that thing that you are if you knowingly or accidentally have sex who couldn't legally give consent because they were under the influence of something? Oh, yeah... Rapist! (scowls) Roger unknowingly magically roofied Jessica and had maritals with her for a YEAR! WHAT THE FUCK?! (another snippet of ''Aladdin, showing Jafar-as-genie, is shown'') Anyways, moving on, the genie then tells Valiant he's going to take his plan a step further now and use his powers to, you guessed it, (holds up index finger dramatically) TAKE OVER THE WORLD! (cut to a clip of the ''Street Fighter movie, showing M. Bison – but surprisingly, not the usual "Of course!" remark'') M. Bison: It was Tuesday. (cut back to The Dom, who looks around in awkward confusion for an extended period of time) The Dom: ...I'm gonna keep working on that. (cut to a shot of a made-up ''For Dummies book entitled "Killing Genies For Dummies", with the man on the cover saying "Fuck those assholes up!") '''The Dom (V.O.):' Luckily, Valiant has, in the course of his investigation, come across the method for killing genies. Apparently, you have to fight them, then dump their lamp in the sea. (cut to a shot of a saltwater aquarium) A handy saltwater fish tank substitutes the last part... (more footage of the film follows, showing Valiant's climactic battle with Doom) ...and Valiant manages to get the upper hand. He forces the genie to use his magic to make it look like Dominick killed his brother *and* Roger in order to get Roger's doppel off the hook. (cut to another brief clip of ''Aladdin, once more showing Jafar-as-genie, as he gets sucked into his own lamp'') The genie complies, but Valiant kills him anyway... (back to ''Roger Rabbit again, showing Doom melting away in the Dip'') ...presumably because he knew that even in this Toon-filled world, no one was going to believe that a magic genie existed, and he didn't want the ancient bastard getting away with murder. Roger is released from prison and everything seems to be wrapped up all nicely – except for one thing... (cut back to the Photoshopped image of Ron Kray with the bullet hole in his head) Who *really* killed Rocco and framed Roger for it? Valiant's answer? (cut back to ''Roger Rabbit again, showing Roger pointing a gun'') Nobody – Roger did indeed shoot the fucker dead. (two shots of Roger are shown, side by side) He created a doppelganger to go and make some loud noises in a shop to provide himself with an alibi... (cut to a clip of ''Sunset Boulevard, showing Norma Desmond (with Roger Rabbit's head Photoshopped on her head) shooting at Joe Gillis as he leaves his home. Upon being shot, he stumbles and then falls into the swimming pool'') ...and then went 'round to Rocco's house and MURDERED HIM IN COLD BLOOD! It might have worked, except for the sheer bad luck that so many witnesses happened to be there at the time. (one more clip of ''Aladdin is shown, once again showing Jafar-as-genie'') And obviously, summoning a genie for the third time and getting shot in the chest wasn't part of his plans either. (more footage of ''Roger Rabbit is shown'') The shocking icing on the shocking cake is that it turns out the real reason Roger hired Valiant in the first place is because he was planning to frame HIM for the MURDER!! Seriously, this lovable bunny picked some random person who'd never harmed in any way and tried to buy him a one-way ticket to the electric chair! (cut to an image of Roger, with dust falling around him as he fades away into oblivion) Roger congratulates Valiant on solving all the mysteries, then slowly crumbles to dust. The end. So, let's summarize these characters again, shall we? (shots of Valiant) Violent asshole with no qualms about taking people's money for half-assed work, hitting women, and killing in self defense. (shots of Jessica) Selfish, promiscuous opportunist sleeping her way to the top and being a colossal bitch to anyone working with her. (shots of Roger) Cold, calculating murderer and unknowing rapist. The Dom's Final Thoughts The Dom: The book is... good, but it does have a certain one-trick pony aspect to it. You could easily say it's a run-of-the-mill noir detective murder mystery novel, with the one interesting twist that it has Toons in it. Don't get me wrong, it was creative as hell. Wolf came up with some truly genius ideas of what life would be like sharing the planet with a range of animated beings. However, the film was arguably even more creative, certainly more enjoyable, and it did a much better job of fleshing the characters out into something a little more three-dimensional. It's easy to see why even the author became enthralled with this version. If you think you might get a kick out of reading about these beloved characters taking part in a much darker storyline, (a shot of the book appears, along with a message: "Your best bet is on kindle") go ahead and read the book. If not, you can still read the other incarnation (a shot appears in the opposite corner of the second book, "Who P-P-Plugged Roger Rabbit", which is described as "still kinda dark compared to the film") and just forget about the image of Roger slowly crumbling to dust. (smiles) See you next time! (cut back to the image of Roger crumbling to dust, as the end credits roll) Category:Lost in Adaptation Transcripts Category:Content Category:Guides Category:Transcripts Category:Disney